lunchfast: stuffed crescent rolls

I am a big proponent of the 11am weekday lunch. Most days I wake up around 6, so the usual early afternoon repast would put me way beyond the rolling hills of hunger, past the tundra of despair, and well into the desert of psychosis. The problem, of course, is that early lunch is one of the first signs of aging — one day you’re innocently eating a sandwich before noon, and then suddenly you wake up cheek-deep in your early bird special, surrounded by crusty old men in ill-fitting trousers who won’t stop yelling about how much they loved Dave Matthews Band when they were in college. And as we all know from reading those magazines at the dentist’s office, the best way to combat the signs of aging is to lie.

I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to tell me that the word is brunch, and that someone invented this idea already, and that I’m not as clever as I think I am. My response is that you should go back to grooving to your Dave Matthews bootlegs and leave my delusion alone. Besides, lunchfast is totally different than brunch. It doesn’t require eggs or other breakfasty foods, it doesn’t provide an excuse for getting drunk in the morning, and it doesn’t involve enormous portions. Instead, lunchfast is a glorified coffee break. It’s a way to say to yourself, ‘Self, you’ve been up for five hours and it’s not even noon. You’ve got a long way to go, so why don’t you kick it with some tea and a crescent roll while you map out how the rest of this Thursday slog is going to go?’

Put the oven on 350, and break out that cookie sheet. Take whatever leftovers you’ve got and puree them. Open the tube of dough and separate out the triangles. Spread some cheese on the dough, add a dollop of puree, and festoon with a few spinach or arugula leaves to make it look like you give a damn. Fold two edges of the triangle over the center to make an adorable little pocket. Isn’t it darling? Now put it in the oven for about 15 minutes, until the edges start to brown. Boom, you’re done. You barely even lifted a finger, and you’re a total lunchfast star.

This post made me smile. My husband and I tend to eat early, say 6pm or so, and when we meet friends for dinner, we always know to grab a snack beforehand. I think WE ARE in the early bird special group already, LOL!

That crescent roll looks amazing. And I couldn’t agree more with your love of lunchfast. I am a 19-year-old university student but my boyfriend always says that I am actually an 80-year-old woman. By the way, I thoroughly enjoy you’re writing :)

I love lunchfast, I get up at 4:30 so by 11 I’m really hungry. Then I need a 2pm snack to keep going. Of course, having food out at 11 and 2 leads to co-workers asking me “are you eating again”? These look great.

I have a silly question. What’s crescent roll dough? I’m in Australia and we don’t have Trader Joe’s. Do you think puff pastry would do the job? (Yes, that’s two questions, I know). I love the look of this as a nice, healthy ‘morning tea’ (which is what we colonials do instead of lunchfast).

Not a silly question at all! Crescent roll dough is the Amer’can way of turning croissants into a prepackaged, processed dough product (much as we turned cheddar into bright orange slices of melty plastic). It comes in a tube, and is even perforated in case the baker can’t remember what a triangle looks like.

But yours is such a great idea–puff pastry! Not only do I think it would do the job, I think it might even take lunchfast into dinnersnack territory. If you try it, keep me posted. We can co-invent a revised recipe!

So I used puff pastry, some baby spinach leaves, smoked chicken breast, capsicum, tomato, mushrooms, fetta and bocconcini and olive tapenade on the bottom (didn’t have any mascarpone or ricotta in the fridge). I served it up on an avocado and lettuce salad for myself and two hungry eleven-year-olds who’d spent the morning sailing. We all LOVED it and the puff pastry worked a treat! Thanks so much for a great recipe!

These are truly creative, wonderful refinements on the original recipe. Thank you so much for letting me know about them — I am definitely going to make a Lunchfast Galette a la Bloowill in your honor!

Throw me in with the early bird group as well. I usually eat lunch around 11am and dinner at 6pm. I love this idea though and think I’ll make some up to keep on hand for when I need a fast snack. Thanks for sharing this. Love the humor in your post, well done!

I don’t like brunch much at all (except for the bloody marys) but can totally embrace lunchfast. Even after eating a decent breakfast, I’m starving for lunch by 11 am, and end up eating too big of a snack then am not hungry again until 3:00, which is getting perilously close to dinner. What’s a girl to do? Make your crescent rolls, of course.

Fantastic post, your humor is great! This is a great idea for our weekend get together when there is visiting, and grilling for dinner, but lunch often gets bypassed. This might be the very thing we need.